Something I quickly learned about horse-drawn carriages: They are slow.

We'd started driving many hours ago, and the sky was just getting dark, but it felt like we'd hardly moved any distance at all. Heather had gotten impatient, run up to the front carriage and asked why we were going so slowly. Driver had laughed and told her that the horses would tire out if they went any faster. Heather was currently sitting on the outside of her carriage, cradling her hammer and looking bored. Max was inside the carriage, having switched with Ava a few hours ago. Heather had forgiven him for beating her after the first time we stopped, when she had soundly beaten his sorry ass with her hammer.

Meanwhile, Drew, Ava, and I were in the other carriage. Ava was still rummaging through her sack. She'd gotten dozens of letters from herself, and was still trying to work through them all.

I was sitting at the back of the carriage, alternately leafing through Introduction to Magecraft's chapter on elemental infusion and watching what barely qualified as a road pass by. I heard some shuffling behind me as Drew came and sat next to me, joining me in my boredom.

"Hey," he said. "I don't think we've met. I'm Drew."

"Nice to meet you, Drew," I said almost automatically, still staring at a rock that had made the carriage jump. After a few seconds, I added "I'm Matt."

It seemed like Drew had expected me to carry on the conversation, as he proceeded to sit next to me in silence for several minutes.

I was in the middle of reading about the properties of elemental fire for the third time, still not taking it in, when he asked me, "How are you?"

"Fine," I replied.

A few minutes later I decided that this pathetic excuse for a conversation had gone on for long enough, and decided to try to repair it. I had little better to do.

"Have you ever used magic?" I asked Drew.

"Can't remember," he replied.

"Oh. You should try, it can be really useful."

"Okay."

And with that, the conversation resumed dying a slow death. Eventually I came up with something else to say.

"That tree looks like a top hat."

I never said I thought of something intelligent to say. To my surprise, Drew laughed.

"Yeah, it does!"

"How do we even know what a top hat looks like?"

"I have no idea."

"I guess we must have known about them… before. It's weird how some information sticks around and some doesn't."

"Yeah."

And then our conversation lost any momentum it had. We sat in silence for couple more minutes until Drew said, "Top hats are weird."

"They are," I said.

We talked like that for hours. Brief bursts of discussion of utterly random things intermingled with minutes of awkward silence while watching the road pass by under us. Resuscitating the conversation on the brink of death every time.

It was a nice feeling, having a friend.

I watched from a carriage as the trees slowly moved past us. The sun was shining into the valley for once, and the way it made the trees glow was absolutely breathtaking, only slightly spoiled by the way the road was making the carriage shake. The sun itself had been beautiful too at first, but I'd learned that looking even in the vague vicinity of it with only one eye was not fun.

We had been on the road for three days now, only stopping to let the horses rest and to sleep, and we still hadn't gotten out of the narrow valley us recruits had woken up in. I'd made progress in reducing how much mana I used in my spells, but I still wasn't close to a low enough level that I'd ever use it with allies nearby. I had tried some other spells I'd found in Introduction to Magecraft, but none of them were any weaker than my basic force spell.

I lost my train of thought as the carriage stopped. Strange. We'd started going again just an hour ago, so there should have been no reason to stop now. After a few minutes of still not moving, I jumped out of the carriage and walked up to the front of the caravan. Drew took my lead and followed me, and Ava followed the both of us.

In front of the head carriage there was a huge wooden gate, in the middle of a stone wall covering the entire width of the valley. It looked like it had been there forever, standing far taller than even the highest of the trees with its stone weathered and cracked in places, but still looking like it could hold back an army.

Driver was arguing with a group of guards in chain-mail armour. I took in their appearances with some interest. Both were men, covered in metal except for their faces. On their chests they had some symbol I didn't know. What struck me most was that they seemed intimidated by the short woman standing in front of them. I noted that Heather and Max were already here.

"What do you mean we can't pass?" Driver said with a note of frustration in her voice.

"W-what we mean, m-miss, is that we have orders to not let anyone but new recruits pass through the gate. From g-general Hammond himself!" One of the soldiers stuttered.

"Why then? I am the Caravan Driver. I have always been allowed through here, Steve" Driver said with an impatient tone.

"W-we don't know! He didn't tell us!" Steve replied quickly.

Driver sighed and turned to us. The two soldiers seemed to only now notice that there were more people than Driver. A twinge of annoyance flared up when both of their gazes gravitated toward my face. This was apparently going to be a regular thing.

"Listen up, recruits! These numbskulls aren't letting me pass, and I'd really prefer to not escalate this diplomatic incident further than it already is. So you're gonna have to walk the rest of the way!"

Ava and Drew groaned.

"Oh, toughen up!" Driver said, her smile back on her face. "You're soldiers! You can handle this! It's not even that far. Now go pack everything you need to bring with you, because I'm taking everything else with me back to Fruma!"

Half an hour later, we were ready to go. I'd had very little to pack, just my sack with Introduction to Magecraft stuffed inside it and my wand. In terms of clothes, I only had the one robe I was wearing. I would have had more if my previous self hadn't been an utter idiot, but I guessed that I'd have to make do. Meanwhile, Ava had trouble carrying her sack due to how full it was. She said it was only important stuff, but I could swear I had seen a dress in there. I didn't blame her though. It was important to her, and she was reluctant to leave anything of her old life behind. I'd have brought everything too if I had anything more.

We watched the caravan head back along the way we had come, having already said goodbye to Driver. It was strange, knowing I would probably never see her again. I had gotten used to only knowing about five other people, and now one of them was gone. I glanced over at the two soldiers by the gate, who still seemed tense. Once the caravan was a sufficient distance away, they visibly relaxed and led us to a smaller door to the side of the gate.

"Sorry about all that," Steve said.

"She freaks us out," continued the other guard.

"Why?" asked Max. "She's really nice."

"We're not allowed to talk about it. Wynn and Fruma have a weird relationship, and that's all you need to know."

With that, Steve knocked on the door, which promptly opened to reveal a rather cosy room on the inside of the wall. The two guards led us through a few rooms with the occasional guard, finding their way through the labyrinthine corridors inside the wall with ease. The wall was much wider than it had seemed on the outside, taking us a few minutes to get through.

"I don't expect you remember anything about Fruma?" I was surprised to see that Steve was looking at me when he said that.

"No." I answered candidly. Steve groaned.

"No, of course you don't. Why do I even ask anymore."

We arrived at another door, which the other guard opened to let us out the other side of the wall.

"Just continue on the road and you'll find Ragni. Signs are everywhere, you can't miss it. Oh, and welcome to Wynn."

And with that, Steve closed the door, leaving us alone. I took in the scenery. The Fruma Wall had been situated at the lip of the narrow canyon-like valley we had been in since waking up, which opened up into a much wider valley on this side. The sun was properly showing here, bathing the crop fields in a golden glow. Various houses placed haphazardly across the valley, and there were many of them on the ledges of the mountainsides for some reason. A path snaked through the valley, eventually going around a bend in the valley to the left.

I jumped as I heard unfamiliar sound. I looked down to see some sort of small white-feathered bird with a yellow beak and no wings. No, wait, it had wings. They were flush with its sides. It made that bizzare sound again. I was like an anatheropterix's squawk, but also different. I looked back to see the others still looking around, except Heather, who looked bored. Another one of the birds had walked up to Max, who was petting it with a smile on his face.

In the end, Ava took the lead.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

She started walking, a bit slowly due to the weight of her sack, and the other three and I followed her.

"I can take some of the stuff in your sack," Max offered.

Ava sighed in relief and promptly gave him her whole sack. He tried to give her his in return, since it was much lighter, but she had already started walking again. Without saying anything I took Max's sack, put mine in it, and threw it over my shoulder. Max gave me a grateful smile before the both of us ran to catch up with Ava, Heather, and Drew.

We were off to Ragni.